MORE Common Sense For Sun City, This Time From Wisconsin

A key point in the editorial below is mindless tax freezes that dodge our responsibility to sort out political priorities and practical spending needs. At every level, elected officials avoid their responsibility. The citizens—like the geezers in Sun City—are more prone to mindless responses to complex issues because those issues are difficult, complicated, and lack easy answers. Thus, the Sun City kneejerk response to taxes. All taxes are bad is akin to saying all snowflakes are alike. If this is (fair & balanced) anti-simple-mindedness, so be it.

[x Wisconsin State Journal]
Put real limits on state, local taxation

If lawmakers want to solve state and local budgeting problems for the long term, they must jettison so-called "freezes" in favor of more effective - but more complicated - long-term solutions.

The Joint Finance Committee, once the brain trust of the Legislature, seems to be suffering brain freeze these days. First, members announced plans to freeze local property tax levies. And this week, Republicans who control the committee are expected to lay out a new plan: a three-year freeze on general state spending. Oooh, that's cold.

Politicians propose arbitrary, mindless "freezes" to dodge their responsibility to sort out political priorities and practical spending needs. Spending freezes imply that all government programs are created equal, and as a result, freezes lock in bad budgeting practices and priorities, ensuring that you usually get less, not more, for your taxpayer dollar.

Worst of all, freezes tend to be temporary solutions enacted in a moment of fiscal crisis. After a while, the freezes thaw, and then it's back to old taxpayer-soaking habits.

What we need are permanent, reasonable limits that match government's tax collecting to taxpayers' ability to pay. Done right, these limits wouldn't really "freeze" anything: instead, the rules would allow for logical, restricted growth in spending based on measurable benchmarks.

For example, some other states match their growth in tax collections to personal income growth or the inflation rate. For local government, a reasonable limit would allow property tax levy increases based on population growth or new construction (the Legislature may include such a quick-thawing provision in its levy "freeze" ). Another possibility: pegging local budgets to the consumer price index. And leaders committed to easing tax burdens could shave a percentage point off the benchmark rates.

To enforce honesty, state budgeteers must be banned from shifting expenses forward into future budgets. Counting income and spending in the year they're due gives a truer budget picture.

Finally, in flush times, state tax surpluses ought to go into a rainy day fund or back to taxpayers. That would deter lawmakers from creating new, permanent spending obligations.

There's no doubt that we need some type of guidelines to enforce fiscal discipline. State spending during the 1990s grew too fast, and most of the money went back to local governments and schools that spent too much in part due to their overreliance on state handouts.

The Legislature is right to attack both problems, but so far the GOP majority seems to be budgeting based on political strategy and ideology rather than sound fiscal policy.

Logical limits based on new formulas won't be nearly as poll-friendly as a "tax freeze" - but coupled with an effective economic growth strategy for the state, they would more effectively and permanently limit government's reach into our bank accounts.

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